Colleen Finnerty, St. Mark's Class of 2011, returned to teach and coach at St. Mark's in the fall of 2017 after two years at Holderness School in Plymouth, New Hampshire. Prior to her work at Holderness, Finnerty was a student-athlete at Bowdoin College where she played field hockey and ice hockey, captaining both teams in her senior year. With four trips to the NCAA tournament, emerging once as the National Champion and once as the National Runner-Up, her field hockey career certainly did not lack excitement. During her senior campaign, she earned a number of accolades including NESCAC and All-American honors. She was also a four-year selectee of Fall and Winter NESCAC All-Academic honors. Her contributions to Bowdoin athletics earned her the Sidney J. Watson Award, an award that recognizes a student-athlete who has honored the DIII philosophy through accomplished participation in more than one sport during their time at Bowdoin.

Nora joined the St. Mark’s community as the Associate Director of College Counseling in 2019. In addition to her role in the College Counseling Office, she serves as a dorm head for III and IV Form boys and coaches field hockey and lacrosse. Before coming to St. Mark’s, Nora was the Director of College Counseling at Harlem Village Academy in New York City; she has worked in independent day, boarding, and public schools up and down Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. Nora also spent time working at Mass Insight, a non-profit working to build capacity to advance equity and opportunity in Title I schools across the US.

Nora holds an A.B. in English from Harvard College and an M.S.Ed. in School and Mental Health Counseling and M.S. in Statistics, Measurement, and Research Technologies, both from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. In her free time, Nora works on maintaining her New York Times crossword streak.